WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist, writer, public speaker and author of the NYT best-selling novel GUN MACHINE.

Everyone’s At San Diego

Published July 19, 2011 by Warren Ellis

Except me. I’ve been to the San Diego Comic-Con maybe four times in the last fourteen years, and the last time I was there for less than a full day, doing RED movie stuff.
San Diego: the comics business goes dark for a week. I used to look forward, a bit, to this week. With no-one around, I could sit and think about what was next, and it always felt like I was stealing a march on everyone else.

Now, of course, I’m barely writing any comics at all, and I have sixty thousand words of novel left to focus on getting written. (I’m behind where I wanted to be, it’s been a shitgrinder of a month.)

Eric Stephenson of Image Comics wrote this very kind little note the other month —

— about how I’m not really present in comics anymore. And it’s true enough. Even that bloody documentary makes me feel like I’m sitting in at my own funeral. Are they screening that at San Diego? I think I heard something about a panel on the subject, anyway. That and getting the Eagle Awards Roll Of Honour gong were clear signals that my time in the medium was done, I think. I thought only dead people got that award. I’m mostly joking.

But that post of Eric’s did put me to thinking: this is the first year in a very, very long time where I’m not using the San Diego week to think about comics. It’s a strange thing, for me, to be done with comics. Especially when there’s so much left to do, that I will probably never be able to do. And on weeks like this, I wake with frustration, that I’m leaving the field with all the things I wanted to achieve half-done.

Oh, and: if you see Templesmith at San Diego, go easy on him. He’s been down in Perth dealing with some tragic family matters, and it’s been a really rough year for him. FELL #10 will be here when it’s here. If you want to buy a comic whose greatest virtue is that it’s really on time, buy a DC comic in September.

One last thing: if your SVK torch arrived inoperative, BERG have written this post —